The Billionaire Firefighter

Chapter 7: The Young Master

Derek woke up and didn't know where he was.

That lasted about four seconds long enough for his brain to run through the checklist. Ceiling too white, bed too soft, beeping to his left, IV in his right hand. Hospital. Okay. He'd been in hospitals before, though usually he was the one walking in rather than the one waking up in a bed.

He turned his head.

There were too many people in the room.

His first thought was that something had gone wrong with Jacob West that the man hadn't made it, and these were lawyers coming to make sure a firefighter didn't cause problems. His squad was there, Brett by the window, two others near the door, but they'd been pushed to the edges of the room by strangers. A doctor with a stethoscope. Two large men positioned near the door with the stillness of people paid to stand near doors. A woman with a tablet. Two men in suits that had never once been wrinkled.

And at the foot of the bed, an elderly man in a dark suit. White-haired, hands clasped, watching Derek with an expression that was working very hard to stay composed.

Derek's instincts came online immediately.

He kept his face neutral. He looked at the suits, the lawyers, the bodyguards. He looked at the elderly man.

"If this is about the rescue," Derek said, his voice coming out rougher than expected, "talk to my department."

The elderly man shook his head slowly.

"Young Master," he said. "We finally found you."

Derek stared at him.

His next thought, which arrived quickly and planted itself firmly, was: scam.

He'd seen enough of them. People who showed up at the right moment with the right story, offering something that felt almost true. The setup here was almost impressive — the suits, the bodyguards, the hospital room that was clearly not a standard ward. Someone had done their research. Someone knew he'd just survived something significant and had calculated that a man fresh out of a wildfire, without a marriage or a home to go back to, might be vulnerable to a story about belonging somewhere.

He sat up slowly, which his body protested in several specific locations.

"That's an interesting opener," Derek said. "What comes next?"

The elderly man — Harlan, he introduced himself, forty-one years of service to the West family — spoke without rushing. He explained that Derek's true identity was the biological son of Jacob West, head of the Taylor-West Group. That more than twenty years ago, during a family power struggle, Derek had been taken from the West home as an infant and had disappeared. That Jacob had never stopped looking.

Derek listened to all of it without interrupting.

When Harlan finished, Derek said: "That's a very detailed story."

"It is," Harlan agreed. "Because it is true."

"Everyone who runs a scam says that."

Harlan didn't flinch. He simply waited.

Then Derek's phone buzzed on the bedside table. He picked it up — and stopped.

A bank notification. New deposit. He opened it slowly.

Fifteen million dollars.

He looked at the number for a long moment. Then he put the phone face-down on the blanket.

"Nice trick," he said. His voice was flat. "But if this is a scam, you picked the wrong man. I don't have anything worth taking."

"We are not here to take anything," Harlan said. "We are here because Jacob West asked us to find you. We have been looking for a very long time."

Derek looked around the room again. At the doctor who hadn't moved. At the bodyguards who weren't threatening, just present. At Brett by the window, whose face said he'd already heard some version of this and hadn't walked out.

Harlan reached into his jacket and produced a card. He held it with both hands and placed it carefully on the blanket in front of Derek.

Derek looked at it.

It was completely black. Not dark blue, not charcoal — black, with dark gold patterns running along the edges that looked like they'd been pressed by hand rather than printed by machine. There was no card number. No bank logo. Just a crest Derek didn't recognize, and his own name.

"This is the highest-level identity card issued to direct members of the Taylor-West family," Harlan said. "The cardholder holds authority equivalent to a chief director within the group. Free use of all products and services under the Taylor-West name. Authority to appoint and remove managers below director level. The ability to mobilize up to eighty million dollars in group funds without additional approval."

Derek picked the card up. It was heavier than it looked.

He was still holding it when the door opened.

A man in an administrative uniform walked in, two security guards behind him. The administrative director. His eyes moved across the room, landed on Derek in the hospital bed, and his expression settled into the particular kind of arrogance that comes from a person who has decided, based on available information, that they are the most important person present.

He said the suite was a premium facility. He implied, with careful indirectness, that a firefighter had no business occupying it.

Derek said nothing.

Harlan turned.

The director's tone sharpened. He threatened to have security remove the visitors.

Harlan looked at him and asked one question.

"Who appointed you?"

The director frowned.

Harlan placed Derek's black card on the table in front of him.

What happened next took about forty seconds. The director looked at the card. He picked up his radio. He made a call. His face, during this process, went through several changes that would have been interesting to watch under different circumstances. Then he put the radio down.

His access was frozen on the spot. A notice came directly from group headquarters: the director was suspended pending investigation for offending a direct member of the Taylor-West family and mishandling a patient.

He left without another word.

Derek watched the door close behind him.

He sat with that for a moment.

"This is not verbal wealth," Harlan said quietly.

"No," Derek said. "It's not."

He believed them. He didn't want to admit that yet, but he did. The card, the bank transfer, the bodyguards, the way the director's arrogance had evaporated in forty seconds — none of that was theater. Theater didn't move that fast.

But believing it and accepting it were two different things.

"I want a DNA test," he said.

"It has already been done," Harlan said. He produced a document.

Derek took it. Read it once. Read it again. Found the number at the bottom.

Probability of paternity: 99.9998%.

His fingers were trembling slightly. He noticed that and made them stop.

"Where is Jacob?" he asked.

Harlan was quiet for just a moment. "ICU observation. Stable. When he briefly regained consciousness, his first act was to confirm your identity." A pause. "His second was to ask whether you had woken up."

Derek set the document down.

He pulled the IV from his hand, stood up, and ignored the way the room tilted briefly.

"Take me to him."

The walk to the ICU ward was longer than it needed to be, or maybe his body was just making every corridor feel that way. His leg still hadn't forgiven him. His chest still had opinions about breathing. He moved slowly, Harlan a respectful distance behind, the bodyguards further back.

He asked them to stop at the end of the corridor.

He needed a moment alone before he stood at that glass and looked at a man who was apparently his father. He wasn't ready for witnesses when that happened.

He walked.

The hospital had that particular quiet of late afternoon, the busy morning rush done, the evening shift not yet started. A few nurses at stations. Visitors moving between wards. An orderly pushing an empty wheelchair.

Derek was passing a row of chairs near the elevator bank when he saw the old man.

Seventies, maybe older. One hand pressed flat against his sternum, the other gripping the chair arm with effort that was becoming less effective by the second. His head was dropping. His skin had gone the yellowish-grey of someone whose blood sugar had fallen off a cliff.

Derek moved before he'd decided to move.

He crossed the distance in four steps and got both hands on the man's shoulders just as he started to go sideways. A second later, another pair of hands appeared coming from the opposite direction, reaching the man at almost exactly the same moment.

Their fingers touched briefly.

Derek looked up.

A young woman. Dark hair, composed face that was currently surprised out of its composure. She looked at him at the hospital gown, the bandages, the general condition of someone who had no business being upright and her brow came down slightly.

Together, without speaking, they held the old man steady.